Indiana Seeks Appeal on Ban of Public Funding for Abortion

A Planned Parenthood lawsuit might make it to the U.S. Supreme Court yet again. The case has already weathered the district court and is now on its way up to the court of appeals.

After U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt granted an injunction against a new Indiana state law that would essentially cut public funding for abortion via Planned Parenthood, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller filed a notice of appeal with the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals this week, reports the Associated Press.

The Indiana state law was signed into effect on May 10. As of signing, it took away approximately $1.4 million funding to Planned Parenthood. The injunction not only applied to the funding aspect of the law but also to the requirement in the law that abortion doctors let their patients know, through explicitly informing them, that a fetus could feel pain at 20 weeks in utero.

In defense of the law, the State of Indiana stated that Medicaid indirectly funds the procedures performed at Planned Parenthood due to the fact that the organization's financial statements show it commingles Medicaid funds with other revenues and the public money might pay some of the overhead costs for space where abortions are performed.

The law, if enacted, would also cut funding to other services, unrelated to abortion, such as contraception and cancer screening.

Indiana is not the only state that has cut funding for Planned Parenthood, on the theory of abortion. According to Reuters, Kansas and North Carolina have also cut funding, but they have only cut state funding.

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U.S. Seventh Circuit features news and information from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which hears appeals from U.S. District Courts in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. This blog also features news that would be of interest to legal professionals practicing in the 7th Circuit. Have a comment or tip? Write to us.